The 2022 Best Small Firms to Work For: SBI Growth

Client Industries Served: Software, Technology, Business Services, Health Care, Industrials, Media, Telecom and Transportation & Logistics.

CMAG: How would you say you've managed to stay among the industry's Best Small Firms to Work For amid these unprecedented times?

We implemented and actively embraced a Purpose, Vision and Values platform that inspired and motivated teams by encouraging individual and communal goals. The platform led to growth not only for the organization but for our employees and reframed the work experience.

CMAG: Were there any specific programs or initiatives (internal or external) that contributed to you being a Best Small Firm to Work For?

By defining and embracing the SBI Vision, we were able to create extraordinary results for our employees and clients. Specifically, the vision is defined as:

• Be Great: Strive for excellence, and continually aspire to a higher standard.
• Adopt a Growth Mindset: Acquire new capabilities, embrace new ideas, and seek out diverse experiences.
• Own the Outcome: Hold yourself accountable to find the solution for both teammates & clients.
• Build the Firm: Embrace teamwork to build something greater than ourselves.
• Inspire Others: Empower those around you and transfer positive energy to clients & peers.
• Embrace 1:1: Invest in relationships that will endure for decades.

CMAG: What's unique about your firm? What sets it apart?

At SBI, we value our consultant's growth, because it impacts the bottom line and leads to better client outcomes, and also because it is the right thing to do. In creating a workplace that values personal improvement we inspire our teams to achieve beyond what they thought possible. Specifically, we strive to:

• Provide a PhD in go-to-market. Our people are relentlessly focused on revenue growth strategy & execution.
• Empower individuals to be the best version of themselves. Our culture of coaching, mentorship, and optimizing work-life intersection accelerates personal & professional growth.
• Give individuals ownership over their career development. Progression is based on consistent performance & values exhibited, not tenure.
• Emphasize that business outcomes start with people. We help employees realize the art of the possible, then empower them to achieve sustained business & personal success
• Embrace 1:1 relationships. Enhance employees go-to-market acumen and accelerate their career trajectory through the journey together
• Keep our people on the leading edge. Between our research arm and serving hundreds of go-to-market clients, our perspectives, practices, and insights continually evolve, as do our employees

CMAG: What's the top priority over the next 6 to 12 months?

In the coming months, we will focus on empowering employees to advise clients on the SBI Four Growth Quadrants. Specifically, SBI consultants will evaluate:

• How to Create Operating Leverage: If current spend is in line with best practice but delivering insufficient growth, what are the primary productivity levers that can be pulled to create growth quickly? How to Invest for growth: When there is tremendous future growth potential, where should investment bets be placed to generate outsized returns?
• How to Approach a Revenue model shift: If the revenue model is in transition, or needs to be changed, how can the transition be approached without increasing cost or delaying growth? How to Maintain growth with less spend: In instances where growth of the asset is acceptable, but the costs are above peers and best practice, how can cost be reduced without disrupting the current growth trajectory?

CMAG: When you look at the remainder of this year and 2023, what excites you? What opportunities do you see in your future?

Accelerating organic growth is a top priority and SBI has a highly relevant tool kit that is delivering measurable results for our client companies. More than 400 clients have depended on SBI's proven Growth Platform™ to address their most important go-to-market challenges and opportunities quickly. The results speak for themselves: $45B+in Value Creation, 900+ Completed Projects and 50x Average ROI. Recognizing these results, a growing number of businesses, and the private equity industry, have come to us to help them drive growth. We are seeing an incredible opportunity to grow our client base and with it our economic impact in the near- and long-term.

CMAG: What impact do you think being a Best Small Firm to Work For has on the firm? Employees? Clients?

At the root of our success, is the satisfaction of our employees. To be recognized for having uncommonly high results — higher than most of our peers — in a review of employee satisfaction on culture, compensation and career development opportunities is an important indicator that we are on track to achieve lasting success.

CMAG: Thank you, and congratulations.